‘Skate-able Art’ Gets Another Go

A meeting will be held Monday night by Seattle Parks and Recreation to discuss what could be the first permanent piece of art designed for skateboarding. The public is invited to Jefferson Community Center at 7 p.m. to provide insight on the potential of Jefferson Park being the host of this unique project.

Related Content

The skate-able art was initially going to be built at Myrtle Edwards Park, on the Seattle waterfront and near the Olympic Sculpture Garden. However, neighbors on May 29 made it clear that they weren’t too keen on the idea, sending the city out to find a new location for what amounts to a statue that you can grind gnar on. More details about the exact design will be released tonight.

Red Bull and X Games skateboarding gold medalist Torey Pudwill approached Seattle Parks and Recreation about creating the piece for Seattle skaters. CJ Rench of Hood River, Ore., was ultimately chosen as the artist and will discuss his ideas at Monday’s meeting.

The idea was first brought up by local artists as an idea for a skatepark in West Seattle in 2007, the same year the City of Seattle’s Citywide Skatepark Plan was established. Eight new skateparks have been constructed since then and another couple of parks are currently in the construction and design stages.

Jefferson Park -- located at 3801 Beacon Avenue South -- opened in January of 2012 as one of the most versatile skateparks in Seattle. Features of the park range from shallow hexagonal dishes to an 11-foot deep bowl, the largest in the city.

In other words, the city has pivoted from putting a skating feature that looks like art near a bunch of other art to putting some art that doubles as a skating feature near a bunch of other skating features. We’ll see if it fares any better.